Spiderman and Mary Jane Watson

Should Spider-man 3 have been called Mary Jane Watson 1, instead?
I think so. It quickly became the epitome of everything that should not be done in a super hero movie. And it’s a long, long movie that spreads out the (few) action scenes in between long, drawn out emotional sequences that pretty much have no place in a super-hero movie. Really.

Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man
Spiderman bawls and cries his heart out, throughout the movie. I mean, c’mon! Spidey is a super-hero, not someone who keeps sniffling throughout the length of the movie. Tobey sucks as Spider-man, sucks even more as Venom, sucks worse when he bawls in the over-melodramatic emotional scenes in the movie, and worse of all goes running to Harry Osborn for help in the over-contrived climax, who (surprisingly!) true-to-character refuses him outright and then rescues him in the end, of course – what more could go wrong, in this movie?

Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson
Mary Jane Watson got way too much screen time. Kirsten Dunst is a total misfit for the role of MJ, I felt this in the first movie, the second only strengthened this belief, but Spiderman-3 left me feeling that the movie was mistitled! Kirsten is a walking talking contradiction: throughout the first movie she was her usual bubbly, freckled self, throughout the second she was mopey and kept bringing the pace of the movie down. In the third part of the series, Kirsten has outdone herself, at times drawing a collective yawn from the whole watching crowd, while the movie insists on revolving around her and what she feels.

The thing about MJ is that she’s everything that Kirsten is not and cannot portray – the original Mary Jane character is a feisty red-head with green eyes, and has a temper that has Spider-man constantly heckled. Kirsten is mopey, keeps her feelings to herself and looks nothing like MJ is supposed to.

The Super-Villains
The super villains in this third part of the series are a worse let down (hard as that may be) to both the previous movies’ villains. Venom’s screen time is paltry, all gone in favor of the long drawn out romantic and over-emotional scenes, and the interlude in between, when Peter Parker uses the symbiote’s agility, while not in costume. None of the evilness that is the Venom character really came out in the movie, probably because the movie hardly gives any time to Venom, and rather concentrates on MJ and Spiderman.

Sandman is a confused (but well-fitting, surprisingly) character who keeps tilting between being a good guy, then a not-so good guy, then a bad guy when he teams up with Venom, of all the things possible, in an attempt to defeat Spider-man. In the end, in a weird turn-around that looks wholly unplanned and last minute, Sandman actually apologizes to Spider-man for murdering his uncle, Ben Parker, that too, by mistake!

Miscellania

• MJ sings an entire song in the movie, and then promptly gets fired from her theater job for having an awful voice. Good for her!
• The wicked Peter Parker (under influence of the symbiote) is actually not that bad as a character, the dance sequence in the bar that MJ takes up a job, later is nice.
• J Jonah Jameson has some genuinely funny moments.
• Spider-man finally throws the web bullets that were present in all the Spider-man games that came out.
• The sequence in which Flint Marko is transformed to Sandman was well done, but ended up feeling contrived like the rest of the movie.
• The New Goblin character (Harry Osborn) dies, courtesy Venom.
• Sandman befriends Spider-man and goes away weeping, while Spider-man keeps up his usual sniffling bit.
• Spider-man exploits Venom’s weakness to sound waves to kill it using one of the New Goblin’s bombs.
• There’s so much forcefully stuffed into this movie, it feels like all the characters refused to commit to a part 4 and so were all stuffed together into one long, painful movie.

A Conclusion
Do you really need one? I’d say give it a pass. Die hard Spider-man fans beware! This movie can cause a temporary, alternating sensation of nausea, sleepyness, and might cause an urge to hurt someone / something in the most dedicated fan.